Category Archives: vibes

Sister Electra’s ballad

It is the fate of some stars, when they die, to reincarnate here in this planet, or perhaps elsewhere, it’s not for us to say. A child of features faded like a watercolour blur was born the day Electra, brightest of the Seven Sisters, collapsed into itself in the absolute silence of the constellation of Taurus, breaking the heart of a million astronomers. She was predestined to shine upon this world but she didn’t want to, plagued by vivid dreams of eternal and peaceful stasis in a void compared to which the womb is but hellish cacophony. She hid in closets at night and dig holes in the ground, she held her breath underwater trying to capture, if only for a moment, that Nirvana which is to spin numb drawing a perfect pattern in the tapestry of the universe. All to no avail, frustration, rage and pain constant exits in the path to elusive balance. She didn’t know who she was deep inside and for that I don’t know if I should feel thankful, or full of pity. Either way, she passed by me in her erratic orbit across this chaotic world, these are the songs she left with me before disappearing into the distance.

It is music that crawls, rumbling blues basslines and drums bashed by Jaki Liebezeit’s brutalised lil’ brother, it is music that soars too, guitars shriek like buzzards scared off the carrion by a powerful lion, then wah wah trotting funky like the hind quarters of a manky Hyaena that knows something you don’t, gnarly shamanic lullabies hovering over the lo-fi distortion field like poisonous butterflies. It is environmental science seen from the point of view of the foot soldiers, it’s a fucking mess, we love it.

A millenial spider dwells in the cold interstices between the stars spinning a glimmering thread of liquid silver which ties the universe together, in Wolf Cub or Witch Hunt Pink Priest summon it from the cold nooks and crannies where it hides when the sun comes out, so it can envelop us in a beautiful shroud while we sleep, puncture our throat with jaws of pure black, and inject us with the sweetest poison.

Married in Berdichev is the music of closing the door of a penumbrous alcobe most carefully, sitting in the unmade bed, tracing the lines in the unkempt sheets while staring at the intersection of two ochre walls where the shadows become the onset of Goya’s blurriest nightmare, a congerie of shapes melding into each other acquiring solidity and volume, the cold dead and bloated body of a sultan of the revenants mouth agape and blind eyes deep set in the caves of its cranium steps outside of the portal you just created and spills upon the room to tell you the secrets from beyond and take you away because it’s against the rules to walk with the breathing when you know all of that. You squash it like an annoying bug and watch it retreat into the shadows with a wry smile, your magick is stronger.

When you reach a certain depth under water, it is hard to tell where is up and where is down, if you aren’t careful and watch for the spirals of iridescent bubbles escalating into the blue you might find yourself diving into the abyss when you search for the surface. A Gal does precisely that, confident and brave, following a treasure map scribbled down by Kim Gordon many years ago, which identifies the position of a metal box lying lonely in the rocky surface, open its latch to find a sun shining inside it, a lovely hum pervades the absolute silence of the bottom of the sea, a vortex of radiance swirls to the beautiful melody of that guitar.

This post goes with a big thanks to Bathetic Records, who have sent us a big box of goodness, cassette tapes, cassette tapes.

I have meant to tell you about this for quite a while, you might remember how we mentioned over Christmas that our most admired beat berserkers Foot Village were making some sound trinkets available for remixing by whoever thought he/she/it had what it takes, well, the outcomes are available here for you to check out & be blown away. There’s much to love, Anavan, IE or Death:Sentence Panda! to mention but a couple. We are going to have some cool stuff coming up in regards to Foot Village, and Upset the Rhythm too, very soon. So keep your ears peeled kids, good shit spreads.

And just so you can begin your week in a most psyched way, here you have an astonishing collection put together for us by that dark master of the synthetic drone, Gavin Russom. Watch him stepping for a moment from the dark belly of the machine to present us with a lovely collection of spiritual utterances, reverberating spells & radiant esoterica. Enjoy!